


Breathing

by silentshadows



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Breathing, Dreams, F/M, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:56:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentshadows/pseuds/silentshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can stare at him for ages, even when he's doing nothing but breathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing

It's probably somewhere near six in the morning. He'll be waking up soon, because the sun is starting to peer through the window, and they both have class at eight. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd sleep in today, just 'port them both to class at the last minute so they could sleep for a while longer. Either way, she doesn't want to move, because she knows that will wake him, and she's too busy watching him for that to happen at that moment. He's beautiful, while he sleeps. He's always wildly handsome, but when he sleeps, there's just something there that she can't quite place. Something that makes him beautiful. He's still handsome, and she wishes she could reach over and touch his face without him waking up, but she knows that he will if she even shifts.

He's having a nightmare, she thinks, because his eyes are flicking more than normal. She tries not to make this watching thing a habit, because while she enjoys it, enjoys just watching him and listening to him breathe, she's afraid that he'll think it's creepy. Even with their souls bound together like the very fibers of the fabric of time, she still frets, sometimes. Something about the way he'd mentioned it to Haruka-papa, she wasn't sure. _“Also, it is hard to avoid hearing a word whispered when the one doing the whispering is sitting in my lap with her arms wrapped around my neck, shaking like she'll fall apart.”_

She bites her lip, staring at him again. When he's awake, she doesn't feel any sort of negativity towards her, but... was she too rash, too pained, to know that she'd been forcing him into something that he didn't want? She could understand why. Even when she had been in her relationship with Shingo, she'd known it was a temporary thing, because while she was as human as she could possibly be, she'd seen things that could never be unseen and done things that could never be forgiven. When Mirrikha, the ages-old Princess of Saturn, had come forth in her mind, telling her in flashes of agonizing memories what she had been forced to do at the will of Queen Serenity... So many had still been alive. Mirrikha wished with all of her soul, all of everything that she had been, that she could have avoided that. Certainly, the Moon had fallen. There were survivors on Mercury, she knew for sure, because the Princess of Mercury had told her so. On the other planets, as well. Earth, in particular... There had been so much life left there. And like a dog that bites a child, Queen Serenity cast it all out, giving her 'gift' out of more spite than goodwill. She left the dark princess of Saturn, after all the rest were dead, to end that misery, to strangle the dog that had bitten her master.

So yes, she could understand if he had an aversion to her. She wanted it to be otherwise, because she'd never in any of her lives been so happy as when she was with him, and she hadn't meant to force him into anything. It hadn't even been so long now. She'd only been living with him for about a month – long enough for them to agree that his bed was big enough for both of them and just because they were both in it did not mean that they had to have sex. She swallowed, realizing for the first time that she was crying. She was a murderer, she knew it well. Even in this life, when she had been called upon do to her duty, that ache was so massive and intense, that awful hole in her chest, that she had done it without thought, intending to simply end this planet. Again. Emissary of the abyss, she'd called herself. She was the abyss, she just hadn't known it yet.

And then came her knight in shadowy armor, to pull her out of her own abyss and into the warmth that was his mind and soul. He'd saved her. Okay, well, technically, Mamoru-san had saved her, and she thanked him every day for freeing her from those long-dead hands of the old Queen. He'd forcibly pried them away, she thought, and replaced them with his own, holding her up and giving her warmth where before there had been only cold, death, and decay. And then Johannes had joined her there, in her own soul, and she'd never been so happy in all of her days, because she was whole, she was complete, she was home.

She reached out her own mind and soul, comforting whatever discontent was in his, as he had done so often when she had nightmares. She'd probably been unintentionally leaking them into his mind... She was going to have to work on that. She breathed out gently when his eyes stopped the rapid flicking that they were doing moments before and his breathing resumed a calm pattern. She wonders what he was dreaming about, then bats that away. She won't have long, now – the sun is getting to the point where it would have woken her up even if she wasn't already awake. Time continued to pass, until her eyes dried and she calmed the anxiety that was tearing at her mind. He'd be up soon.

And as soon as she'd had that thought, the dark shadow under the bed moved across the room and covered the window as he adjusted himself, apparently having stirred just enough to unconsciously will the shadow to block out the light. It takes all of her power not to laugh, but she manages, and decides that she'll just ask him, when he gets up. Make sure that he knew that this was not mandatory, that he didn't have to be here with her. She only wanted what he wanted, and as long as he was happy, she could be happy, too. She couldn't bear the thought of him growing to resent her for that day that she'd spoken her soulname to him. 

He's breathing differently, and she can tell that he's awake, even if he hasn't quite stirred yet. “Goeiemôre,” the Afrikaans is easy, for phrases like that. He's only been teaching her little things, because she's been asking, but for now, she's just pleased she remembered it. Her voice is a near-silent whisper, because, well, that's what she does. He opens one eye, looking at her in what might even pass as confusion. Perhaps he can tell, even in the dark, that she'd been crying.

“Why are you awake, Hota?”

She shrugs, and her muscles are grateful for the chance to move, because really, she's been laying stock-still, staring at him, for nearly three hours, just thinking about him and how wonderful he is. She smiles, shifting so that she's closer to him, but not quite touching – it's him who closes the rest of the gap, snaking an arm over the top of her and putting his face at the top of her head. She's not sure why he wants her, or really, if he even does. But for now, in this particular moment, she almost doesn't care, because he's there, and that's all she could ever ask from him.


End file.
